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– The Magical Land of Yeld Kickstarter is now live! This is the brand new tabletop role playing game that my brother Nick Smith and I have been working on for years. Let me tell you a little about it…

Yeld is the biggest project I’ve ever attempted, and to be honest I’m pretty nervous about it. My experience has shown that it’s harder to sell people on a comic then a game. But I’m also super excited, because I’ve been wanting to share this with you for years! The world of Yeld is big and scary and full of amazing stories, adventures and mysteries. There’s so much to Yeld that I could just never find a good way to show you in this comic. A role playing game is teh perfect way to bring Yeld to life, and I hope you’ll all take a chance to try it out! You can check out the Kickstarter page here.

I’ve seen a couple Kickstarters do similar things , and I gotta ask – what is the thinking process behind making the higher tier PDF rewards (Rank 2 and 3 Training Packs) only available together with the physical book? Isn’t that totally counter-intuitive, at least for people who don’t want to deal with shipping?
(Not that it matter much to me, cause, as interesting as your game seems, I’d have no one to play it with anyway, but this, uh, kickstarter-tiering-practice always confused me, cause it seems to exclude a potentially sizeable part of the audience. Or maybe I’m the only one who dislikes physical goods?)

No, not at all. I understand the concern. You weren’t the first person to mention it either. The sad truth is that international shipping is a bear. It’s just too expensive for most people. As you may know, I’ve been burned hard in teh past by not charging enough for shipping for my Kickstarters, or being caught unprepared when shipping prices dramatically increased before I could ship my books. This time I had to make sure that we were asking enough to 100% cover shipping expenses, and that means that shipping is just… way too much. And I hate that. So digital content has to be an option. And I should have realized that people would want ALL the digital content.

I gotta be honest. Knowing what happens to travelers who get stuck in Yeld makes me wonder about the longevity of roleplaying sessions, either over the course or years or with time-skips. Or does that only happen if they extensively interact with natives, like what’s-his-face with Modest’s mom, or Marah with the kick-butt vampire-knight?

So what happens is that as you play the game time passes. You chart it on a calendar. Keeping track of time as you travel is cool, because Yeld is full of all kinds of holidays and events, and if you’re in the right place at the right time you can see and do some really cool things. But years are shorter in Yeld, and even though you might only be 8 and 9 when your first step through the door, before you know it your birthday will come around, and then around again. As you get closer to your 13th birthday you’ll start to feel different. Mechanically, when you turn 13 you become a monster. You give up your normal Job and select a Monster Job, like Vampire or Deep Mage. the job comes with both advantages and disadvantages, including physical change. Even though you become a monster, you’re still you. You’re not evil (unless you are), but you’re now this monster with monster habits and monster tendencies, and that creates all kinds of trouble. You also just can’t go home. Your younger friends can, but you can’t. You’re now stuck in Yeld forever… unless you can face down the Prince and defeat him. Thats the only thing that can purge your corruption and restore your humanity so you can return home.

So in a very real way the game is on a timer. You have to complete your adventures before you all turn 13, otherwise you’re stuck in Yeld forever.

Forever… unless you kick the Prince’s butt. Granted, that’s considerably easier said than actually done. Plus, what would even happen with the prince gone? Chaos? Balance? Nothing?

In any case, this is totally awesome-sounding, Jake. I’m really glad I asked that specific question now and I really hope you meet (or better yet, exceed) your Kickstarter goal!
But in the meantime, there’s still this awesome comic to look forward too. Heh heh.

I came here from the KS campaign that someone recommended me via email.
Now that I have been binge reading the whole strip in the last few hours and I really love it and can’t wait to play in this world.
(Even though the advertisements here keep suggesting that what I really need, is an asian girlfriend.)
When I just got the four compilations from Drivethrough I realized, that I actually own the Ocean RPG without having ever read it.
(I got the horror bundle some time ago but just needed the Dread RPG for a quick Halloween session in our store. Shame on me for disregarding it, I will read it after I got some sleep.)
And mentioning the store, of course we have your awesome SeaDracula RPG in stock.
So I already had two chances to stumble upon MM but as they say, “third time’s the charm”.
So here am I now, waiting for the next strip, hoping that the KS is successful (and that it maybe will be released in german language, too. Because there are not many RPG suitable for children.)
So thank you for creating this wonderful world and characters, I will definately keep following them in the future.
(Will any of the characters from the comic be part of the RPG or will the RPG just take place in it’s own parallel dimension of it?)

Hi Jan! I sent out a mass email through DrivethruRPG yesterday to anyone who had ever bought one of my games or comics. I guess you were on the list because you had a copy of Ocean. Anyway, I’m glad you decided to check out the Kickstarter and I’m glad you found my comic!

Many characters from modest Medusa will appear in the game in either small or large roles.The Prince and his henchmen Vargas and Kerrigor play very large roles. So does the Gorgon. Expect to see Urano, the Pirates, the Mermaids and lots of other characters as well. Maybe even modest herself!

I’d love to eventually see Yeld translated to German. That would be fantastic!

Does your store carry the German hardcover version of Sea Dracula, or the American paper version?

I think we had both, first the english and later the german one but because our customers tend to get the german versions we tend to stock just the german ones when they are out.
It always makes a cool conversation piece because of the weird theme and the fact that it is so short, that all rules fit on the inside of the hardcover.
That makes it the only hardcover roleplaying game with 0 pages we have. ^_^